Many business owners are under the false impression that once an SEO campaign has been completed and their rankings have improved that this is the end of the work. The truth is it is only the beginning and there are several reasons for this.

The first is that Google is constantly amending and updating its algorithm which allocates rankings for every search term. What might have worked last month to boost rankings may no longer work after Google makes a change. Also, Google likes to see websites that are growing rather than those which sit still and offer no new content.

Then there is the not-insignificant fact that your local competition is unlikely to just sit around and accept that you have outranked them on Google. They are more than likely to instigate an SEO campaign of their own and if you are the top-ranked website it is you that they are gunning for.

So, hopefully, you see that you must stay on top of your SEO efforts, and one of the most important elements of that process is conducting an SEO audit. An SEO audit is an assessment you carry out on not just your website, but each page you are trying to rank to ensure that it is fully optimised for when Google’s spiders come crawling to assess all the on-page ranking factors.

If you are unsure how to conduct an SEO audit, then you could employ an SEO agency to conduct one for you. However, even then it will still be valuable if you at least have an understanding of what constitutes an SEO audit, so here are seven of the main tasks that will be the basis for it.

Conduct Keyword Research: SEO without keyword research is akin to trying to shoot at a target whilst wearing a blindfold. Keyword research identifies what keywords attract the most searches, which you can target for quick rankings due to low competition, and new keywords that attract increased search volumes.

Complete A Website Audit: Here you assess your website for the quality of its content and go through all the onsite SEO factors. These include metadata such as title tags, and ensuring that all internal linking works properly as well as checking that your website provides users with an excellent experience.

Check Your Google Business Profile Is Complete: Google Business Profile (formally known as Google My Business) must be complete and accurate. Here you can add your business address, phone number, and other key information which you wish people seeing your profile to know about your business.

Assess Local Citations: Local business citations are places online where your business’s details are listed. Popular examples in Australia include Foursquare and True Local. You want as many of these as you can acquire, but two crucial caveats are that they all must be accurate and identical.

Evaluate Reviews From Customers: The reviews that customers publish online are extremely important and you must monitor these constantly. Further, always ensure you reply to each one, even those which are negative, as this can prove to be a positive as people see that you engage with customers.

 Study Data From Webmaster Tools: The more data you have about how your website and SEO are performing, the better. To facilitate this you want to set up webmaster tools such as Google Analytics which will give you lots of valuable data and statistics that allow you to identify possible improvements to your SEO.

Analyse Your Competition: Finally, in any competition, if you know what your competitors are doing you have an advantage. That applies as much to SEO and gaining better rankings on Google as anything, so analyse their websites and see what they are doing to try to beat you so that you can stay a step ahead of them.